To win 2014, BJP has to project outsider as PM candidate

BJP president Nitin Gadkari said the other day that Narendra Modi could be the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the next general elections. Then, he very quickly corrected himself and announced the next day that Arun Jaitely and Sushma Swaraj could also be good prime ministerial candidates of the party. He also included Lal Krishna Advani, believed to be harbouring prime ministerial dreams even when AB Vajpayee was on the “gaddi”, in the list.

I do not know whether Gadkari realizes this or not — the best prime ministerial candidate of the party can only be from outside the party. The party, with its extreme policies, has painted itself into such a corner that there will not be enough people in the country who will be ready to put it back to power, on its own.

The BJP, to redeem itself, needs an outsider as its candidate for the top post. This could be somebody like Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik or Chandrababu Naidu. If the BJP cannot come to power on its own (the same is true of the Congress which now heads an UPA government at the Centre) this is also because the BJP as a party does not exist in large parts of the country in any great strength (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal are good examples of this).The BJP, to come to power, will have to be at the head of an alliance which includes other parties much in the manner that it headed an NDA government between 1999 and 2004. The only difference is that this time around it does not have as its leader a moderate, like Vajpayee, who is acceptable to all. Admirers of Narendra Modi would love to gloss over his communal record and would gloat over his “economic record” (which is nothing but using public money to give huge incentives to industry to locate their units to Gujarat. This pleases the businessmen who sing paeans in his name). But the fact of the matter is that the minority community as a rule would cast their vote against a party that projects somebody like Modi as their guy for the top post. They will never trust a party which does that, whatever they might think of the opponent party (the Congress). Modi is too unpredictable and untrustworthy for them his sadbhavana rallies notwithstanding.

Ditto for Advani. Besides having become too old, he will be 84 by the time the next general elections are held, he is also widely perceived as the father of whatever happened at the Babri Masjid and its aftermath.

Since minorities constitute 15 per cent of the voters and in the peculiar first past the post system of election that we have in india, only 30 per cent votes are required for winning, it is impossible for BJP to clear the hurdles with Modi at the helm.

Congress with 15 per cent of the votes can easily garner another 15 per cent without much effort. Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitely, of course do not have a reputation like Modi but the association will rub off on them and their projection as boss of the BJP will not result in any significant gain for the party. It also seems likely that some of the parties that the BJP would like to ally itself with will refuse to do so if Modi is projected as the prime ministerial candidate. This means that the BJP will not even be successful in establishing an alliance with other parties before going to the elections.

On the contrary, a leader with a good record but outside the BJP will be acceptable to people who would not want to vote for the Congress. Do not forget that this is for the third consecutive term that the Congress will be seeking power and in this scenario it is likely to be confronted with a significant anti- incumbency effect.

Somebody like Nitish Kumar, who is a leader in his own right and perceived to be doing extremely well governance wise will be, by and large acceptable, to the electorate. Naveen Patnaik’s BJD in Orissa severed its link with the BJP for the latter’s communal record in Kandamahal in the last state assembly election. But Patnaik’s main rival in the state is the Congress, so in a way he has no other go but to tacitly tie up with the BJP at the Central level.

With a long record of winning elections and perceived as being not corrupt, Patnaik could also be nationally acceptable though he himself seems to unwilling to project himself. Chandrababu Naidu and his TDP are far removed from the BJP now. But Naidu was an important part of the NDA between1999 and 2004. His party and he himself have been out of power ever since the NDA government went out of office in 2004. For him too, the Congress is the main opposition in the state of Andhra Pradesh. So at the national level he cannot tie up with a formation that has the Congress party at the helm. Although he nowadays seems to favour a third front at the Centre– bypassing both the Congress and the BJP — there is no crystallization of the idea at the ground. If the third party alliance does not materialize, it is quite possible that at the end he will have to loosely tie up with the BJP. With Naidu’s stars now ascendant in Andhra Pradesh, the BJP can also do well to consider himself as a choice for the country’s top job. The BJP leadership in its collective arrogance will find it difficult to project or digest projecting an outsider as its leader for the next elections. But it has no choice. Project an outsider or else perish is the choice available to the saffron party.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Kingshuk Nag, Resident Editor of The Times of India, Hyderabad, considers himself a jack of all trades. Accordingly, his older blog on this site, Masala Noodles, is about life, people, politics, economics, history and what have you. He has lived up to his promise that the blog will have a lot of spice and "round and round" noodles, as in the twists and turns of our daily existence. He loves to tell stories, so he has now started this new blog "The Wonder That Is Indian Politics". Doesn't the name say it all?

Kingshuk Nag, Resident Editor of The Times of India, Hyderabad, considers himself a jack of all trades. Accordingly, his older blog on this site, Masala Noo. . .